


The DJ Was Asleep

by Lilac_Motion



Series: Soulmates Gaiden [4]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Modern AU, Other, alternative universe, song in your soulmate's head gets stuck in yours, soulmates prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-11
Updated: 2016-10-11
Packaged: 2018-08-21 21:46:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8261440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilac_Motion/pseuds/Lilac_Motion
Summary: The first time Yahiko and Konan heard "November Rain", they were in the Red Light District of downtown Ame. Konan was pretending to proposition a shady tourist with a schoolgirl fetish while Yahiko hacked into his smartphone with the aid of proximity scanners.  (Soulmates prompt: when a song in your soulmate's head gets stuck in yours. modernish- AU, the Ame orphans in another child-unfriendly crapshack world -- but nobody dies, hurt and comfort)





	

The first time Yahiko and Konan heard "November Rain", they were in the Red Light District of downtown Ame. Konan was pretending to proposition a shady tourist with a schoolgirl fetish while Yahiko hacked into his smartphone with the aid of proximity scanners, scooping up his bank account info along with emails and all folders containing photos. Konan and Yahiko looked up sharply at the same time, trying to figure out where the music was coming from, but the tourist didn't seem to hear it, and, having gotten what they wanted, Konan and Yahiko scared him off by pretending to see a cop and the tourist scrambled off in a hurry.

"This song has a very beautiful melody," Konan closed her eyes with a dreamy sigh, "but where is it coming from?"

"The lyrics seem kinda melodramatic," Yahiko huffed, "this doesn't seem like anything the taverns around here would play."

The two of them dropped off their crop with a info broker for the nominal fee, and returned to their cold water apartment after picking up take-out. They sleep cuddled together for warmth and security, and as they drifted off, "November Rain" played softly again – a mournful sound.

The second time Yahiko and Konan heard "November Rain", they were crossing the bridge over the river that encircled western Ame. The outskirts of the city were lined with ramshackle farmhouses abandoned by residents fleeing the firebombing of the last war, and most were never inhabited again since the salting of the fields. Konan had off-handedly remarked that people could grow crops there again if they wheel in soil on raised beds, and Yahiko decided to see if any of the houses close to the city was inhabitable, or at the very least, still holding something valuable. When they hear the refrain, "in the cold November Rain", it seem to come from two places at once – inside their heads, and under the bridge. Konan clutched Yahiko's arm tightly, a motion mostly made for Yahiko’s benefit, as his face has turned completely white.

Tales of hauntings were another reason why the farmhouses had remained abandoned – not everyone had managed to flee ahead of the firebombing. Many veterans maimed by an even earlier war had retired to raise cattle, some had been too sick to run, and some had refused to leave behind all that they have left in the world and had burned with their homes and livestock. When the rain stops during a storm long enough for the wind to be heard – it sounded like wailing.

Early orphanhood has made Konan and Yahiko very pragmatic children, so when the tenement fires starts to edge towards their building and their landlord wanted higher rent, they took their worldly possessions with them out of town – what are the ghosts of the slain compared to their killers alive?

The third time Konan and Yahiko heard "November Rain", it was accompanied by the whimpering yelps of a dog from the house next door. Yahiko's face was white again, but as a man, he couldn't let Konan go alone! He went out clutching her sleeve while she was clutching a loaf of buttered bread, like Psyche descending to the underworld prepared to feed a three-headed-dog. What they found in the house next door was a very tiny dog with a funny face, and a kid their age who has dark red hair, and so skinny, he was swimming in his oversized black kimono. The kid blinks weakly when Yahiko hauled him up, and chewed slowly when Konan fed him pieces of bread. The dog continued to yip till Yahiko took half a loaf from Konan's hand for it, "Just great," Yahiko complained, "now we have two more mouths to feed."

Many nights when Nagato was hungry or restless he would wander through the ruins of his village, rummaging through the cupboards of neighbours long gone, then returning to the yard of his house to collapse kneeling before the grave mounds of his parents, his arms wrapped around his knees as he tries to feel warm. November Rain was a cold and lonely refrain that wouldn't leave his head, but sleeping between Konan and Yahiko, Nagato's mind is silent at last.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Regina Spektor's "On the Radio", "November Rain...we listen to it twice, cause the DJ was asleep...", I just realise that DJ could be a reference to God. I ship Yahiko/Nagato/Konan and have been wanting to write them for some time, especially in a modern-ish AU, especially where none of them dies, so this. Chibi was a dog that Nagato had found shortly before meeting Konan and Yahiko in the flashback, and that dog has a hilarious face, I need to write that AU where Chibi survives and bite Danzo in the ass when the Complete Monster was trying to sneak up on the Ame orphans.


End file.
